Sarah messaged me from her layover and told me about her backpack being stolen. I was shocked to say the least. I have never heard of anything being stolen from that checkpoint. I have been through there many times and never had any incidence. I think the worst part is that there is nothing that could have been done. It isn't like Sar was careless and left her bag in a stupid spot. It is so ridiculous and makes me so angry about the corruption and the broken systems in this country. Very angry.
About an hour after I heard from Sarah I was still in Kampala and Denis and I were trying to take a bus to a restaurant to get lunch before we headed back to Jinja. We were hiking down a hill and one boda (motorcycle) came so Denis told me to take it to the bus station and he would grab the next one. As we were driving away Denis was talking to the boda man in luganda I assumed telling him where to take me. So we get down to the bottom of the hill and keep driving past the bus station. I tap the guy on the shoulder and am like um hello I think you missed it. He smiles and keeps driving. So I assume that Denis has told him to just take me right to the restaurant and we will skip the bus.
We finally get to a slow spot where the traffic noise isn't deafening and I ask him, where are you taking me? This whole time I have been getting a little bit more nervous and I started calling Denis who didn't pick up the phone. I am starting to get annoyed with Denis for changing the plan on me in another language. The boda man says, I am taking you to Garden City (a big mall downtown). I respond by asking, Did the man tell you to take me to Garden City? He stays silent and I jump off the boda. I ask him again and he stares at me blankly. I raise my voice and almost yell, Where did the man tell you to take me? The bus stop. So why are we going to Garden City? Blank look.
Why are we going to Garden City?
No words
I start yelling and muttering all at once and begin pacing. At this point 10 other boda drivers are surrounding us on the side of the road trying to figure out the situation and also trying to get me to come with them on their boda. My boda man starts asking me for money and I yell at him that he will never get any money unless he goes and finds my friend! At this point I am alone in a part of the city I do not know and I have 30 cents, exactly enough for what should have been a ride to the bus stop. I literally can not pay him but I also do not understand why I am supposed to pay this man who took me to the wrong place and is no basically leaving me stranded on the side of a road. He starts whining about how I am being unfair and I need to at least pay him half.
I might have called him a dumb ass.
Denis, genius man that he is, figures out what has happened. I guess he got on another boda and that boda man somehow knew we were heading to GC and not to the bus stop or to the restaurant. So Denis pulls up and finds me on the side of the road surrounded at this point by 20 bodas and yelling as loud as I can at my boda man, totally freaking out, losing my mind, crazy, overreacting to a situation which really isn't very out of the ordinary for Uganda.
Absolutely my proudest moment.
We did not end up paying the boda, which I later felt bad about. I may have been taking some of my anger about Sarah's backpack out on a mostly innocent boda man. And he didn't steal her backpack... nor did he know that someone in his country and just screwed over my best friend and that I, feeling powerless over that situation, was totally ready for a fight, any fight. He probably had heard that white people are pleasant and nice and they pay well. Now he knows better.
In more pleasant news here are some yummy looking instagram pics.
Blueberry ice cream. Blueberry. There are no berries in Uganda. There is also basically no decent ice cream in Uganda. So you you put them together and blamo! You really have something. We have discovered that all ice cream tastes good with chocolate syrup on it.
Goats. They always remind me of Erin Dermer. Also I always want to snuggle them.
Beautiful Sarah.
Making Pizza with Francis' sisters.
My new favorite restaurant has pink lemonade. Can you imagine?
Also there are cupcakes! They aren't good. But still.
Bujagali Falls. This is 15 minutes away from my house. I love the Nile. I am comforted by the fact that if for some reason (apocalypse) I have no access water or electricity I could head on over to the Nile and bathe, wash my clothes, and whip up a dam to make my own power. Or sail to Egypt.
I hit my head on a big stick. Or I got a wicked cool scar from that knife fight I was in last night.
Kids hanging out in a suitcase. They can almost all fit in there and still zip it shut. Skills.
After I took the first picture the whole neighborhood came over and tried to fit themselves into the suitcase. Good jobs guys.
 |
| The back of a boda |
About an hour after I heard from Sarah I was still in Kampala and Denis and I were trying to take a bus to a restaurant to get lunch before we headed back to Jinja. We were hiking down a hill and one boda (motorcycle) came so Denis told me to take it to the bus station and he would grab the next one. As we were driving away Denis was talking to the boda man in luganda I assumed telling him where to take me. So we get down to the bottom of the hill and keep driving past the bus station. I tap the guy on the shoulder and am like um hello I think you missed it. He smiles and keeps driving. So I assume that Denis has told him to just take me right to the restaurant and we will skip the bus.
We finally get to a slow spot where the traffic noise isn't deafening and I ask him, where are you taking me? This whole time I have been getting a little bit more nervous and I started calling Denis who didn't pick up the phone. I am starting to get annoyed with Denis for changing the plan on me in another language. The boda man says, I am taking you to Garden City (a big mall downtown). I respond by asking, Did the man tell you to take me to Garden City? He stays silent and I jump off the boda. I ask him again and he stares at me blankly. I raise my voice and almost yell, Where did the man tell you to take me? The bus stop. So why are we going to Garden City? Blank look.
Why are we going to Garden City?
No words
I start yelling and muttering all at once and begin pacing. At this point 10 other boda drivers are surrounding us on the side of the road trying to figure out the situation and also trying to get me to come with them on their boda. My boda man starts asking me for money and I yell at him that he will never get any money unless he goes and finds my friend! At this point I am alone in a part of the city I do not know and I have 30 cents, exactly enough for what should have been a ride to the bus stop. I literally can not pay him but I also do not understand why I am supposed to pay this man who took me to the wrong place and is no basically leaving me stranded on the side of a road. He starts whining about how I am being unfair and I need to at least pay him half.
I might have called him a dumb ass.
Denis, genius man that he is, figures out what has happened. I guess he got on another boda and that boda man somehow knew we were heading to GC and not to the bus stop or to the restaurant. So Denis pulls up and finds me on the side of the road surrounded at this point by 20 bodas and yelling as loud as I can at my boda man, totally freaking out, losing my mind, crazy, overreacting to a situation which really isn't very out of the ordinary for Uganda.
Absolutely my proudest moment.
We did not end up paying the boda, which I later felt bad about. I may have been taking some of my anger about Sarah's backpack out on a mostly innocent boda man. And he didn't steal her backpack... nor did he know that someone in his country and just screwed over my best friend and that I, feeling powerless over that situation, was totally ready for a fight, any fight. He probably had heard that white people are pleasant and nice and they pay well. Now he knows better.
In more pleasant news here are some yummy looking instagram pics.
Blueberry ice cream. Blueberry. There are no berries in Uganda. There is also basically no decent ice cream in Uganda. So you you put them together and blamo! You really have something. We have discovered that all ice cream tastes good with chocolate syrup on it.
Goats. They always remind me of Erin Dermer. Also I always want to snuggle them.
Beautiful Sarah.
Making Pizza with Francis' sisters.
My new favorite restaurant has pink lemonade. Can you imagine?
Also there are cupcakes! They aren't good. But still.
Bujagali Falls. This is 15 minutes away from my house. I love the Nile. I am comforted by the fact that if for some reason (apocalypse) I have no access water or electricity I could head on over to the Nile and bathe, wash my clothes, and whip up a dam to make my own power. Or sail to Egypt.
I hit my head on a big stick. Or I got a wicked cool scar from that knife fight I was in last night.
Kids hanging out in a suitcase. They can almost all fit in there and still zip it shut. Skills.
After I took the first picture the whole neighborhood came over and tried to fit themselves into the suitcase. Good jobs guys.
Thanks for feeling my pain so much that you picked a fight with a boda driver.
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how much it means to me.
Seriously.
Love you.